Oh so Sly

Sucker Punch weighed in on September 23, 2002 with the now classic 'Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.' The game is essentially a platformer, with a few minor stealth elements, as well as nods to generas such a double stick shooters and cart racers.

The heart of the game is the platforming elements, which are accomplished masterfully. When you jump, you can push the circle key to perform a flourish that allows you to land on very tiny spots and narrow ledges, or permits Sly to grab onto a pipe to clamber up to a new area. It's a clever trick that makes the player feel like they are really accomplishing something fantastic. At the end of the game when you have to quickly chain moves together into a fluid whole, the brilliance of the design becomes apparent. in other words, I felt like a total bad-ass as I guided Sly through his paces.

While the platforming mechanics are second to none, there are a series of mini-game levels that are not quite so wonderful. There are several section where you pilot a variety of vehicles, but they all move with the left stick and shoot with the right. The control feels very soft and loose, making precise movement an impossibility. This leads to many frustrating and pointless deaths. There also several sections where you race a van against 4 other competitors. It is very arcade style, with the only controls being the left stick to steer and the square button to trigger power ups you pick up along the track. Again, loose, floaty controls make these sections more frustrating than fun. The platforming sections are so enjoyable however, it is easy to forgive and forget the exasperation.

The boss fights are exciting, challenging, and annoying. They play more like puzzle sections, in which you have to figure out the right sequence of moves rather than just be quick on the trigger. There is still a twitch element, especially with the Frog and Panda bosses, but once you figure out the gimmick for the fight, it is often over very quickly. However, you will be seeing each stage of the 3 or 4 stage boss fights repeatedly - because if you make one wrong move you are turfed back to the first form, no matter how far you've gotten. The game really forces you to learn the patterns of the fights very well. One of the more interesting bosses is Mz Ruby, who through a quicktime events at you. But, she tosses actually representations of the playstation button symbols, which you then dodge by pushing the same buttons in the same rhythm. It is a clever way to do it, rather than have them arbitrarily flash on screen.

A real gripe that I have is with the "life" system. I really believe that it's a hold over from previous generations of platforming games. It's like the developers put it in there simply because "that how games are." If you loose all your lives you go back to the beginning of the stage you are on, but don't have to recollect any clues, and you have an infinite number of continues. So it is punitive, but not whole heatedly.

Sly Cooper really rewards you for sticking with it when you run into a difficult section. The difficulty seems to be dynamic - ramping up when you are doing well, but lending aid when you struggle. It will give you charms - first a silver, and then a gold - to increase your chances. And it seems to slow down some sequences and/or make them easier if you are having trouble. For players that conquer the game, there are timed master thief runs that challenge you to master all the special moves you unlock in the game. Even the most obsessive compulsive gamer will be challenged to finish everything in Sly Cooper. The reward for beating a levels master thief sprint is a special developer commentary, which makes me wish unlocking them wasn't such a pain since I'm sure they are worth listening to.

If you haven't played this game yet, do yourself a favor and go pick it up for the few dollars it costs - it will remind you of why you like gaming so much. It is also interesting to compare it to Sucker Punches' most recent game - Infamous. Playing through both at the same time really made me aware how much of Sly Cooper went into Infamous, as well as seeing what lessons the developers learned from the series. This game is highly recommended.

The Road to 1183

In order to receive the one-star "puzzle gamer" badge over at 360voice.com (where my xbox blogs!) I need a further 1183 points in a select list of "puzzle" games.



Astropop
Bejeweled 2
Boogie Bunnies
Buku Sudoku
Coffeetime Crosswords™
Hexic 2
Hexic HD
Jewel Quest
Poker Smash
Puzzle Fighter HD
Roogoo
Tetris Evolution
Tetris Splash
TiQal
Word Puzzle
Zuma

A few I already own, like Luxor and Roogoo. Tetris Evolution, which I'm going to borrow from a friend, is the only retail game - the others are all XBLA.

To kick it off I bought Buku Soduku yesterday morning. It's a cute little game, with nice graphics but poor sound. It also has an "auto-pencil" feature that renders most of the Soduku gameplay irrelevant. All you have to do is click on the dark colored number. Also, the game is old enough that no one at all is playing it online anymore. I sat for nearly 10 minutes waiting, but couldn't find a match. So I can't get all the cheevos on this one without boosting. Dang it.

The second game I bought is TiQal which is a tetris rip off, skinned in a South American -psudo - indian way. There are some interesting facts about actual cultures on some of the load screens. You have to make cubes of same colored bricks in order to advance, and it's a little harder than it sounds! It actually quite will done and I'm looking forward to continuing to play it.

Yesterday I achieved 120 points playing these two games. Yeah! Now only 1063 more points left to get. Wish me luck because these puzzles make themselves hard to complete!

Bionic Commando Multiplayer Demo -First Look

I'm not much of a demo person, or a multiplayer person for that matter, but I am interested in the updated mechanics in the new Bionic Commando game - so I thought that I'd check it out. Much to my surprise I enjoyed the few rounds I played. I think a large part of that involved the fact that chat was not enabled and there fore I couldn't get annoyed at the constant stream of inane chatter. I hope it stays this way in the final release!

The demo pops you into a 5 minute deathmatch against 7 other players (so 8 people including you), with only one map at the time being. There is no tutorial on how to traverse the world, just trial and error. While the game is loading there is an innovative method of conveying the control layout. A 3-D render of the 360 controller floats in space and you can hit buttons to see what they do. Unfortunately the load time is not that long and it took me multiple rounds before I was able to push every button to see what it does.

The matches themselves are pretty fast and furious, and favor those who really have the swing mechanic down pat. Around the map are points where gun or armor are located. the glow brightly and tend to be focus points for the action as players converge on the spot. A handy feature is the ability to grab the guns or armor with the bionic arm and pull it back to you. Several times I was able to use cover, grab a gun, and then head around a corner and blow some dude away who was camping there to try and mow people down.

You are also brightly colored on a fairly drab background, so it's not an option to hide through camouflage. the catch is that there is some vertical layering to the levels, and you can grapple your way up and then reign terror down on your opponents.

There are melee attacks, but weapon use was so prevalent that I never had a chance to get close enough to an opponent to take them down by that method.

A leveling up system seemed to be present, but did not persist from match to match in the demo.

Initially after the release of the 360 demo there were some reports that people had problems finding and connecting to matches, by Saturday afternoon when I was playing this was not an issue. A minute was about the longest I waited to be matched with the maximum amount of other players.

I am going to continue to play the demo and see how it holds up as I learn the map and controls better, and may be picking the retail release up as well.

Review of Bully (360)

Late in the PS2's life came Rockstar Vancouver's view of high school society in the form of 'Bully.' It would take nearly two years for imperfect ports of the game to hit the Wii, Xbox 360 (March 2008) and the PC (Oct. 2008). Like the GTA games that Rockstar is better known for, Bully is an openworld sandbox game with a cynical view of Americana. However, with a smaller game world and shorter missions, Bully is actually a much tighter game than its big brothers.

Jimmy, the main character, finds himself dropped off at Bullworth academy by uncaring parents. He quickly discovers that the school is rigidly divided in to cliques, such as the Nerds, Jocks, and Preps. Sort of like a real high school. The game involves him negotiating his way through classes, and taking the cliques on one by one. Classes are done as mini-games, and are generally entertaining. The Scholarship Editions on the Wii, 360, and PC contain a few classes not found in the original PS2 version, and these seem to be tailor made for the Wii controller, and therefore end up being a bit awkward on the other systems.

One of the most notable aspects of the game is the passage of the seasons as you progress in the game. Holidays like Halloween and Christmas come and go, each with their own special events. Winter buries the school campus and the entire town under a blanket of white. If you receive detention during this time you'll be shovelling snow instead of mowing the lawn!

Little touches in the game world and dialog show off the high production value of this game. Several different collectibles are scattered throughout the entire gameworld, and more than 300 articles of clothing can be found or bought, thus giving completionist gamers something to obsess over.

Controls on the console editions of the game are tight, with vehicles such as bikes and go carts being as easy to control as Jimmy himself. The PC controls are a little harder to adapt to and seem a shoehorned on after thought.

Overall the game is extremely fun to play. It's everything you like about a GTA game, but with all the annoying stuff removed. The atmosphere is light hearted and the subject material not as dark. I can't recommend this game highly enough.

Oblivion Main Quest: From Weynon Priory to the Dagon Shrine

After exiting into the main world of Cyrodiil you head to Weynon to give the amulet to Jauffre, who also knows the location of the Emperor's Heir. You get a sense here for the depth of the world that Bethesda has created, and NPCs talk (to each other) about what has just happened in the imperial city, and a newspaper lays on a table also talking about recent events.

Jauffre points you towards the city of Kvatch and instructs you to bring the Heir, Matartin (who named this guy?) back to Weynon Priory. At this point you are faced with a choice. You can either a) set out on foot to the city b)receive a free horse in the stables, or c) quick travel. I went for option c because I knew that I'd be exploring the world through side and faction quests, because I have somewhat limited gaming time, and because I hate horse riding mechanics in any game. As an interesting note, when you are riding a horse in Oblivion the shadow cast by the horse only includes the saddle - not you! I'd recommend, however, that if you are only planning on playing through the main quest that you choose to walk or ride through the landscape rather than quick travel. This way you can full appreciate the size, scope, and beauty of the game.

Once you have arrived at Kvatch by your preferred method, it turns out the quest is not as easy as walking into the city and finding Martin. Instead, an Oblivion gate has opened right in front of the town and daedra (basically demons) have over run the town. Martin is holed up inside the cathedral inside the city.

The first task is to close the Oblivion gate. You have to go into it to do this, and find yourself transported to a hellish world. It's actually only a small area that sort of funnels you to the tower you need to go to. Once inside the tower I became very disorientated and it took a good bit of going in and out the same doors before I found the correct path. This happened because the first and second floors not only look the same, but are also labeled the same. So I felt like I was trapped in some time warp were I was continually ending up back at the same spot. I finally figured it out and was able to battle my way up to the top and remove the stone that was keeping the gate open. And unlike every other dungeon in the game, I was just kicked out back into the normal world and didn't have to back track to the entrance.

Once the gate is closed you head into the city and clean out the remaining daedra and find Martin in the Cathedral. After escorting him out of the town I choose to do a side quest and clear the Castle in Kvatch of daedra as well, which netted me a nice suit of armor, but it isn't necessary to the main quest.

You have to tell Martin he's the heir, that the daedra attacked the city because of him, and that he needs to follow you. All in all he takes it pretty well. In fact, he is just an unbelievably nice guy. since this is an RPG I choose to believe that he tortures kittens in his off time just to make up how nice he appears to be.


You can risk hoofing it back to the Priory, or just quick travel to make sure he gets there in one piece. No matter what you do the Priory is under attack when you arrive and the amulet has already been stolen by a mysterious cult. Since Martin obviously isn't safe at the priory, you are stuck hauling his butt up to a more defensible place. This is Cloud Ruler Temple, north of Bruma. After you stash him safely away, you have to head out and start tracking down the stolen amulet.

So starts one of the more boring lines of questing in the game. You go and find Baurus in the imperial city, and help him fend off the worst assassination attempt ever, and get a book. You may remember Baurus as being there, and useless, when the emporer was killed. Wish there was a dialog option to rub it in. Anyway, you go talk to Tar-Meena at the arcane university library and she gives you another book. Then you go to a bookstore and wait around to get a third book (but no latte - only bookstore with out a Starbucks), you then talk to Baurus again and head into the sewers to get the fourth book. Once you have all four you return to Tar-Meena and she tells you to come back later and she'll have it figured out. So you twiddle your digital thumbs for 24 hours until she's ready. At least it is 24 hours game time, and you can just sleep that time if you want. She tells you it has to do with the first word of each paragraph, and the real you has to pull out pen and paper to figure out the clue.

It points you to a tomb on the Green Emporer way at noon. So I staid at the closest inn for 40 gold for the night (geez! And not even a mint on the pillow) and waited in the right spot.
Glowing symbols appear, and tell you to head out to a new location to find the Dagon Shrine.

On to glory! (or at least another trip inside a cave)

Iceburg dead Ahead

Judging from Sony's NPD numbers it must of been Sony execs that broke into my house and stole my PS3 and PSP, so that I had to replace them and drive up sales numbers.

Gamasutra - NPD: 2009

Derivitive Much

I finished wading through Gears 2 last Friday, which I actually started playing on the day it came out, but I have limited gaming time when my son isn't home - and I didn't want to explain to a toddler what a 'headshot' is. Anyway, there's a part (I think at the end of chapter four or the beginning of chapter five) where you are riding on reavers and fighting off a much bigger one called a Hydra. When you are doing this in cramped underground tunnels it's pretty awesome, and he finally gets stuck and can't make it any further. But like any bad Sci-Fi channel movie the monster has to come back for one more scare, so once you are above ground the Hydra pops up for one more go around. You are completely on rails for this fight (you where for the underground fight as well, but it felt better, now it's just a straight line), can fire forward and back, and move very minimally to dodge rocks. It was TOTALLY like the sequence at the end of Beyond Good and Evil, only in this one the Reaver does move in front of you for the occasional rocket hit. The feeling was exactly the same. It felt like a dev at Epic had played through BG&E, pulled out from that sequence what he liked best, and shoehorned it into Gears 2. It was just a strange sense of deja-vu. It was still a fun part of the game that I enjoyed, I just couldn't help it that I felt like I'd already done it before.

Call of the Wild

I'm also playing 'Call of Cthulhu' along with the Reble FM/Eat-Sleep-Game guys for the new version of backlog. I'm playing on the PC - which, since my laptop with vista was stolen - I am using the older desktop running XP and the game is much happier than it would otherwise be. This game (based on the H.P. Lovecraft mythos) is a port of an original xbox game, and had actually been in development for a significant period of time prior to its release - so it looks very "last gen." Edges are square, and items (like books on a shelf) that now would be their own, separate 3-D objects are basically just a texture.

Having said that, and admitting that I *really* am not a horror genera fan in general, this game does have a certain appeal. The devs have really tapped into that Lovecraftian vein of brooding horror. I keep telling myself the game isn't scary, but every time after I play it I'll get up from where I'm sitting at my computer, walk around the corner from the kitchen into the living room, and nearly jump out of my skin because there are a couple of balloons floating around that are left over from my son's birthday party - and my mind goes "There's SOMETHING there!"

This game has excellent sound, and hearing the creepy wind blowing from the harbour, or holding your breath while a guard's foots steps go by are really some of the highlights of the experience.

Unfortunately this game does have a lot of issues. My biggest complaint so far has been the controls. I can't get the mouse sensitivity to a point I like it - either it is abysmally slow or it is swinging wildly. I can't really tell if the awkward feeling of the controls is intentional, and meant to add to the tension of the game - or if it is just bad programming/design choices. The jump function is especially broken, and I've gotten stuck or died way too many times because of it. I should also mention that having the X key to back up, and the S key as a function key was extremely confusing at first. I'm used to it now, but my fingers still feel uncomfortable dropping down to X to move back. And I is the inventory key, which makes sense, except that to reach it is awkward and requires you either to move you hand off the direction keys or mouse.

The inventory screen also bugs the crap out of me because of the scrolling EKG readout in the background. I'm a nurse, a cardiac intensive care nurse, and I look at this things twelve hours a night and have to be constantly interpreting them. Not to mention it's not exactly realistic - the Q wave (the sharp upward stroke) is way too wide, and the P wave (the first little bump) is way too close to the P wave. Also, when you are injured the Q wave just gets smaller. It would have been better if it became fast and irregular instead. I'm sure I'm the only person that this would bother, but it *really* does drive me nuts.

The most frustrating and rewarding part of 'Call of Cthulhu' so far has been the sequence escaping from the hotel. Frustrating because it is trial and error and requires a very specific sequence of events that includes jumping (twice), and I thought I'd never get through it. I spent more than an hour on this one tiny part of the game. I finally made it to the next save point, and promptly got up and did a Super bowel Touchdown end-zone dance all around the kitchen. I don't think I've felt that much satisfaction completing a challenge in a game since I beat Sonic 2 when I was twelve.

I've now rolled down the hill in the truck and made it into the sewers, and am awaiting the podcast on Monday to see were to play to for the next segment.

And one last thing, I want to mention the sanity system in the game. There is no HUD whatsoever in the the game, but you still can lose health and sanity. Your lost health shows as bloodspatters on the screen, and lost sanity as a wavering and blurring of your vision. Plus you might hear or see things. In general I've tried to steer clear of situations or things (like bodies) that set it off, but not always. It is fun to have the screen waver and twist for a few moments. It really helps add to the atmosphere of the game.

Waking up in Cyrodiil

You start off in Oblivion as a prisoner in a cell. You don't actually know why you are there, and I don't ever think that you are ever told. I suppose it is part of the role-playing experience that you don't know this, and can make up whatever you like. (Check out Zero Punctuation's review for his take on this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/75-Oblivion)

Anyway, your cell just happens to contain a secret passage that the guards are sneaking the nearly 90 year old emperor out of, and they don't shut the door behind them. The emperor is voiced by Patrick Stewart, which would probably be instantly recognizable to anyway interested in playing a massive Bethesda RPG. So you follow the emperor for a little bit, then stumble into an area and clumsy learn to kill of rats and loot corpses and chests. After having learned the basics of the game you meet back up with the emperor and, he allows you to follow him - but not before you pick, I mean tell, him your astrological sign. These signs give you certain bonuses that can help you greatly throughout the game. I dithered a long time with choosing, because I was worried about making the wrong choice. I finally settled on the Warrior, simply because that is (mostly) what my character is. After following the emperor a little longer and watching his guards kill off some necromancers the assassins finally get to him. As he is dying he hands you his ancestral amulet and tells you to find Jauffre in Weynon Priory who knows where the royal bastard is stashed - who is now the heir to the throne.

Before you get to far you have to talk to the guards, who apparently don't mind you doing this very important task, and you pick your class. The guard makes a helpful suggestion based on how you've played so far, but I chose to totally ignore his advice and went with being a warrior, since I was already heading down that path.

You fight through some more rats and slog through some more sewers, and then you hit the quintessential moment of the game. So far you've been stuck in very small, cramped spaces, all of which are colored various shades of brown. Then you undo one last gate and tumble out into Cyrodil. It is breathtaking. I probably stood there for a good five minutes, just turning around and looking at the landscape. It all feels so huge, with the promise that you can really just run off and do whatever you want. It was at this moment that I realized the genius of this game. However, with a lack of imagination I just set out to do what I'd been told - finding the Priory.

Ripped off

My house was broken into last Sunday morning and my PS3, PSP, and laptop got stolen. In true gamer fashion what I raged about the most was the loss of my game saves. Bastards! At least they didn't take the 360. (They did take my black controller though) So my Oblivion save is safe and I can get back to blogging. I'm actually about 20 hrs in so losing that save would have been enough to make me lose it. So thankfully I'm not in the funny farm and can keep going!

A New You - Creating a Character in Oblivion

The character creation in Oblivion is as easy as a few button clicks, or as detailed and time consuming a process as any obsessive compulsive could wish it to be. First you choose your gender and race. I greatly appreciate being able to decide to play as a female character, instead of another Nathan Drake clone with an untucked shirt. There are 10 races to choose from, and while the standard elves are present there are also more creative fantasy races such as the cat-like Khajiit. All in all the world of Oblivion is an amazing tolerant place, and choosing to play as a certain race will not bar you from completing any major (or minor) quest lines due to bigotry on the part of citizens. the special skills and attributes of each race are outlined in the game manual. You are also asked to choose a name, but it serves mostly as a place holder and way to identify saves and doesn't show up again in the game.

You can then simply choose a preset character design, or can go through an incredibly exhaustive menu of choices to alter almost every aspect of your character. The sheer amount of choices simply for cheeks or eye shape and placement is almost overwhelming. You are also able to set the age of your character - from a fresh faced youth to a grizzled old man. You manipulate sliders to change setting n features, and are able to rotate the camera around to get a good view of what your changes look like from any angle.

I finally settled on a Nord - for the inherent shielding ability since I am planning to play a melee combat character. I made it a woman, young, with blond hair up in a bun. I gave her a male name however - Theseus - since I figured she was actually going to be wondering through the labyrinth of the game rather than already knowing it secrets.

A nice feature of the game is that after you choose your race and look, and go through the opening sequence of the game, you are given the opportunity to change everything before stepping out of the sewers and into the outer world.

It is sad that, after going to so much effort, you will hardly see the character you created again outside of the item selection screen. While it is an option to play in third person perspective, it is awkward to do so and you quickly realize things were meant to be seen and dealt with from a first person point of view.

Jumping on the Oblivion Bandwagon

After much thought and a good sized margarita at Chili's, it seem time for me to finally try playing Bethesda's massive RPG 'Obilivion.' For my first post I'll talk about starting the game and creating a character, the beginning of the main story line, and the mage's guild quests.

i'll be playing on a fairly new elite Xbox 360 system that I picked up last fall as the optic drive on my launch system started to fail. I plan on installing the game to the hard drive. My main reason for choosing Xbox over PC or PS3 is that I want to compare the experience to my playthroughs of Mass Effect. And yes, also because I want the points!

No garantees of screen shots as I have no way to capture them from my television at this time! I'll endevor to take some photos with my digital camera and work them up in photoshop to make them presentable.

Look also for a semi-cool header to be showing up as soon as I get the images together!